The Competition among the three leading search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN is fierce. The battlegrounds are changing quickly. Which of the three leading search engines truly has the Best Results?
Many people would like to know. There are so many web sites out there. Do we truly get the results that we are looking for? Or do we blindly trust Google, Yahoo, and MSN? There are many people out there who are fighting to be on the front page of each of the major three search engines for particular keywords. And these people are using dirty tricks and methods to fool the search engines. All of this is not in the interest of the end users and leads to unwanted results. There are even competitions out there to be on the first page of Google for a particular search term at a particular date and time. In fact that is the biggest problem that the search engine companies face today.
We want to know who really provides the best results. Therefore we started this little science project to find out. It follows our standard scientific method and it will help you easily compare the results of the three major search engines:
Google: Incorporated in September of 1998 Google is a derivation of the word Googol which refers to the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Reference to this term is indicative of Google's mission - to index the infinite data sources making up the world wide web. Natural Search Results: Googlebot, Google's spider crawls the web following and analyzing links and page content. Its PageRank technology is used to rate the quantity and quality of inbound links (links pointing to your website). Analysis of on page content examines textual content, fonts and placement of words. Google provides natural search results to: AOL Search, Netscape, ScienceCastle.com, Ask.com, Earthlink and Iwon.
Yahoo: Founded in 1994, and launched as a human edited directory. While directory results are still available, today Yahoo search results are derived from a combination of several search engine technologies and Yahoo's paid inclusion program. Natural Search Results: Search results are generated using a combination of Inktomi, Fast and Altavista search engine technologies. Search results as seen by Yahoo partners Inktomi and Altavista sometime differ from those displayed on Yahoo.
MSN: Microsoft has long been the world's leading software developer. In 2005 Microsoft, via MSN, launched it own search engine. Natural Search Results: Most of MSN's search results are provided by its search engine (spider called MSNBOT), although some of its results are still hand-picked by human editors. Some experts have observed that MSN tends to favor home page content over sub (or internal) pages. Prior to 2005, MSN accepted search results from Yahoo.
What is the basis of the competition among the search engines? Market share. Google, Yahoo! and MSN are all competing for our attention. More users equate to more revenue via pay per click ads and other advertising opportunities.
Are you ready to find out who has the most relevant results on your own? Then get started with this science experiment now!
